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Topic: Private property is the same as a state?? (Read 21267 times)
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Alex Libman
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There are a few unfortunate social cults within the broader Free State Project movement. The Keene Cult is particularly scary. Real libertarians move to the middle of nowhere and don't meet with any other FSP'ers except on serious business. Hell is other people. The only conversations worth having are in written text. Beyond that, socialization is a mental illness. LOL glad we agree. How would you deal w/ people like her? esp. since according to her profile she is from NH? Just ignore her, as long as she's not too actively violent. Focus on accumulating knowledge and wealth. Idiots will go extinct on their own. |
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« Last Edit: February 14, 2011, 04:19:37 am by Alex Libman »
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Alex Libman
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You know, I take that back. I'm wrong. My assessment of the libertarian community in Keene is tainted by my own personal failure to socialize with them, or anyone else really, even on online forums... Maybe the best that *I* can do is move (back) to the middle of nowhere, but perhaps some people can do better, and good for them!...
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eh?
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...Maybe the best that *I* can do is move (back) to the middle of nowhere... Geez. Don't do that. I need to have some kindred spirits still there for me to admire (from a sufficient but not excessive distance) if I ever manage to make it there myself. |
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To advocate compulsory taxation (there is no other kind) is to advocate aggressive violence. Rare indeed seem those who would rather the lash were banished utterly from human interaction save in defense of self and property than the haft thereof find on convenient occasion its lawful place nestled comfortably in their own grasp. |
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WendellBerry
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If all land in libertopia is privately owned, then yes private property in the form of land ownership is the same as the state in the eyes of the landless.
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Alex Libman
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What do you mean "if"? Absence of Property Rights (i.e. inability to homestead land that isn't explicitly privately owned) is theft, period!
In a capitalist system, all Rational Economic Actors own themselves and the consequences of their actions. Any alternative system is some form of slavery. Aspects of your self-ownership include ownership of your mind, your body, your time, your skills, rightfully-obtained physical possessions, contractual Rights, your Rights as a parent / guardian, etc. It is your choice whether you spend your teenage years studying chemistry or playing football, whether you work 100 hours a week or 5, whether you eat beans or caviar, whether you invest in land or prostitutes or VA Linux stock ar $320/share, etc, etc, etc. And you must live with the consequences.
I chose not to own land at this time, but all my other Rights should remain intact, their only major enemy being the State (and the deliberately-perpetuated human ignorance that the State feeds on). I rent a small room, and my Rights at my residence are based on my agreement with the landlord (which unfortunately wasn't as explicit as I would have wished, but good enough), as well as all my other Rights as a Rational Economic Actor. The power of the landlord is very well balanced by my ability to leave, get a room elsewhere (which is easier in the era of Craigslist, and future advances will make it easier still), and, if warranted, to write a scathing public review that would discourage others from doing business with that landlord. He is the "lord" over his land / real estate, but not over me.
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antistate1190
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If all land in libertopia is privately owned, then yes private property in the form of land ownership is the same as the state in the eyes of the landless.
How so? Explain. |
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John Edward Mercier
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What do you mean "if"? Absence of Property Rights (i.e. inability to homestead land that isn't explicitly privately owned) is theft, period!
Welcome to Proudhon. |
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WendellBerry
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What do you mean "if"? Absence of Property Rights (i.e. inability to homestead land that isn't explicitly privately owned) is theft, period!
In a capitalist system, all Rational Economic Actors own themselves and the consequences of their actions. Any alternative system is some form of slavery. Aspects of your self-ownership include ownership of your mind, your body, your time, your skills, rightfully-obtained physical possessions, contractual Rights, your Rights as a parent / guardian, etc. It is your choice whether you spend your teenage years studying chemistry or playing football, whether you work 100 hours a week or 5, whether you eat beans or caviar, whether you invest in land or prostitutes or VA Linux stock ar $320/share, etc, etc, etc. And you must live with the consequences.
I chose not to own land at this time, but all my other Rights should remain intact, their only major enemy being the State (and the deliberately-perpetuated human ignorance that the State feeds on). I rent a small room, and my Rights at my residence are based on my agreement with the landlord (which unfortunately wasn't as explicit as I would have wished, but good enough), as well as all my other Rights as a Rational Economic Actor. The power of the landlord is very well balanced by my ability to leave, get a room elsewhere (which is easier in the era of Craigslist, and future advances will make it easier still), and, if warranted, to write a scathing public review that would discourage others from doing business with that landlord. He is the "lord" over his land / real estate, but not over me.
well yes - but where all land is privately owned and you own none, you do have the option of contracting with whomever you like but you don't have the option of not contracting with someone that includes paying for the contract or having it gifted - do you? and if a right doesn't have to be purchased or gifted, then how can your right of self-ownership be intact?? |
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Alex Libman
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Man, if I wasn't for years of perl programming, my only answer to the above would have been "huh?!"... Please try to write in readable sentences. Now, our lives, as we're aware of them, exist in a materiel universe. Your wishes and needs have no automatic effect on reality, but your actions do. As the result of millions of years of biological evolution and thousands of years of civilization, most human beings have come to possess much greater ability to provide for our needs. Where an island could once only support a few dozen hunter-gatherers, millions of human beings can now reside in previously-unimaginable comfort. Journeys that once took days now only take minutes. Where once a woman needed to birth 10 children to assure a steady population, as 7-8 of them were statistically likely to die before reaching adulthood, infant mortality is now a lot less frequent, and famine is almost unheard of. Where once survival necessitated repetitive and brutal toil, pulling one's economic weight today simply requires spending a small fraction of one's day in pursuit of education and/or employment. Reality doesn't owe anyone a free ride - thieving politicians might claim otherwise, but only as an unsustainable bribe for your obedience. The mode of survival might have changed, but the reality that makes it possible remains constant - human beings survive as the result of their will to do so. Ownership of property is a means of facilitating the economic system that makes our civilization possible - instead having to kill off a competing tribe in order to gain access to their cave you, if you want to survive in the modern world, must compromise with a non-violent system of claims and legal remedies, like for example the payment of rent. The fruits of people's labor -- whether in homesteading a cave or building a skyscraper -- can be transferred on a voluntary basis, but widespread tolerance for their re-appropriation through violence makes advanced levels of civilization impossible. Since the human population numbers are highly dependent on civilization, a decline in recognition of the fundamental rulesets that are required to make civilization possible (i.e. Natural Law / Natural Rights / Non-Aggression Principle) results in massive poverty and starvation, while a more accurate and disciplined adherence to those rules results in greater economic growth. It is in every rational person's interest to defend those rules - firstly in defense of one's self, but also in defense of one's neighbors, since whoever aggresses against them is likely to come after you next. Thus a sufficiently advanced civilization evolves to defend itself from instability and collapse, and the recognition of Property Rights is an essential part of that life-affirming equilibrium.  |
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« Last Edit: February 16, 2011, 08:42:29 pm by Alex Libman »
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John Edward Mercier
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He did write in comprehensible English. If all the land is owned... and you own none... you are either trespassing or have contracted with a landowner in some manner to exist.
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antistate1190
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He did write in comprehensible English. If all the land is owned... and you own none... you are either trespassing or have contracted with a landowner in some manner to exist.
How do you propose people solve that? Abolishing private property? If all the land is owned, I will make a VOLUNTARY agreement w/ the landlord to live on his land in exchange for me VOLUNTARILY paying rent. Where's the exploitation in that? |
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John Edward Mercier
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What Wendell is stating is that you will have no choice in the matter... you must contract with someone.
Your choice not to enter a contract with anyone... does not exist.
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dude6935
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She has the intuition to see the problem in fiat land claims. But she conflates land and buildings. She doesn't see that one thing is the product of labor and the other isn't.
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Alex Libman
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If all the land is owned... and you own none... you are either trespassing or have contracted with a landowner in some manner to exist. Yes, by existing within a material reality you naturally must accept its laws acting upon you, from the laws of physics to the laws of economics. Scientific inquiry will tell you that your consciousness is not floating through a subjective or random universe, but a universe as it exists - where you are an evolved monkey living in an economy of billions of others, and where reliable knowledge is attainable through deductive reasoning and scientific experimentation. You can certainly wish that you were born into a universe with a less hurty law of gravity, or where you're 20ft tall, or where you've inherited a billion dollars, etc, but your wishes do not affect reality - we must all play the hand we were dealt by reality and make the most of it, which is what civilization is all about. If all land is privately owned, as would be a case in a society that is rational and free, then you must act non-violently in order to acquire the resources needed for your survival and, hopefully, longevity and happiness. In a rational society, ownership of property is a reflection of merit - if not for a person who inherited that property then of the person who transferred it voluntarily. We do not live in an entirely rational society yet, but we have to start somewhere - attaining justice for pre-capitalist (ex. feudalist / colonial) crimes of generations past is an impossibility, and an equilibrium would be much better attained by instituting fair rules moving forward, as properly tends to flow from the incompetent to the competent quickly enough. In a rational society people also shouldn't just find themselves in the middle of nowhere, naked and illiterate, wondering how they got there and how they are to survive - children are usually born into families that care about their future, whether for benevolent reasons or selfish ones, and there's plenty of charitable intent to help children become productive members of society rather than criminals. Rights such as the Right to Free Exit and " easement" make it easier for people without property to get around than a socialist caricature would lead you to believe, until they can get to a place where someone is willing to help them, or better yet make an investment in them, as there is no better investment than helping a potential Rational Economic Actor out of a tight spot. In the modern world, all it takes is a $200 laptop to gain access to nearly limitless educational and employment opportunities, and those "trickle-down benefits" of civilization will continue to multiply in the future. Life doesn't owe anyone a free ride, but the price of a ticket is ridiculously cheap compared to what it has been in centuries past! If all land is stolen (i.e. some violent force stands in the way of a rational process of homesteading and trade), then your options are much, much more limited. The thieves who profit from that arrangements (i.e. socialists) will tell you all sorts of religious fairy tales about their eternal benevolence, but that is just an appeal to blind faith, and falling for that lie requires a total ignorance of history and economics and all other things upon which a rational theory of Rights has to be built! All of human economic history is the same lesson being repeated over and over and over again - capitalism is the engine of civilization, while socialism is the engine of death! |
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John Edward Mercier
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Why would that society be more rational and free than that of indigenous peoples?
Its certainly nothing natural.
And if governance is to maintain private property, rather than require extreme efforts of the individual to claim natural territorial ownership... then obviously it must exist.
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